Cheaper oil extraction eyed: Oil Shale

[Democrats_win]

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/business/article/0,1299,DRMN_4_3621449,00.html

Method could tap shale in Utah, Colo.

SALT LAKE CITY - For decades, the oil shale deposits of eastern Utah and western Colorado have presented a tantalizing prospect for oil production. But the cost of extraction has always been higher than that of oil obtained by drilling.

Now, a new Vernal, Utah-based company, Oil Tech, thinks it can produce oil for $10 to $20 a barrel, and it has built an 80-foot prototype retort near Bonanza, Utah....

In the past, companies spent up to $400 million on an oil shale retort, Merrell said....

"We just run it periodically," showing government officials and potential customers what it could do with a large enough supply of shale.

The retort is a test model. To increase capacity as a commercial venture, they would have to increase the diameter. It should be able to process 1,000 tons of rock per day. Someday it could reach 20,000 tons, he said.
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[ramapo]

1. Sounds very enviro-friendly

Just imagine 20,000 tons of rock being pulverized, or whatever they do to it, every single day in multiple locations. All to drive a big, inefficient hunk of steel.

[mcscajun]

2. Which makes me wonder…

…what happens to the 2,000,000 - 40,000,000 pounds of rock PER DAY that such a process leaves behind? And what will such a landscape look like?

:grr:

[Coastie for Truth]

5. Come on south of Pittsburgh along the Mon and I-79

and see the "coal spoils."

Century III Mall is built on top of steel mill slag. Just like oil shale spoils and coal spoils.

[BlueEyedSon]

3. Don't forget the accellerated Global Warming from using more

fossil fuels!

[Coastie for Truth]

4. Three issues: cost, heating energy to retort it, waste shale

The question comes down to three issues:

1. The cost of an integrated "refinery"
2. How much energy does it take to retort the shale.
3. How do you dispose of the sand/shale after you have recovered the oil.

I have always believed that coal liquefaction, oil shale, and tar sands would be viable as crude moved up in price.

And, based on my "conspiracy" view of things - I always felt that OPEC manipulated the price of crude to just below the economic viability of the cheapest of coal liquefaction, oil shale, and tar sands.

If crude went high enough we could even burn "bio-mass" (Jim Beame, Jack Daniels? Okay - Four Roses) as a fuel